Disruptive innovation, as well as technological, social and economic changes are key characteristics of the “New Economy," drastically impacting all aspects of businesses and social life. Information Technology (IT) is at the center of the Digital Transformation of companies for the optimization, redesign or reinvention of their business in response or in anticipation to the disruptive impact of emerging technologies and new business models.
All managers are directly or indirectly concerned with IT, either because they work in the IT department or because they are involved in the definition, purchase, deployment, and usage of IT infrastructures, software, and applications. This course will provide students with a basic understanding of IT as an introduction to the changing managerial role in organisation.

 On January 2007 during a sales conference a sales person holding a piece of metal and plastic said: “after this nothing will be the same!” And nothing was the same!
 
On November 30th, 2023 ChatGPT was unleashed! Will this change everything again? How?
 
Smartphone is in the twilight zone, which will be the next Big Thing? Generative AI? AR/VR? The Metaverse? 
 
Bitcoin is getting back, while few months ago it was considered dead: will Blockchain be the next internet? Will other cryptos, NFT and other digital assets resurrect as well?

Why well established companies fail in face of smaller undertakings embracing a new 
disrupting technology?
 
Why most of us don’t know or don’t remember Kodak or Blockbuster or Blackberry?
 
Why startups are so cool and impactive?
 
Together we will address these and other questions, try to understand the complex dynamics of innovation in the Digital Era and help to take conscious and educated decisions to improve the competitive position of the company we work for or to foster the creation of disrupting startups.  
 
In addition to providing the traditional elements of classical Information Technology, i.e. business analysis, IT governance, information security, this course will present the exploitation of emerging technologies in management and will show in detail the growing importance of modern trends related to the digital economy. Ample space will be devoted during the course to the most recent developments of Artificial Intelligence (Generative AI, Foundation Models, Transformers, LLM). Opportunities and risks related to the exploitation of AI will analyzed. Blockchain as a shared and programmable validation tool will be studied; significant attention will be also paid to cybersecurity, to the use of big data and to Smart Manufacturing (i4.0), key elements in the field of products production and services provision.
 The course approach will be based on the presentation of the innovation, the existing applications, and the future developments. In order to help students to better understand the issues that need to be faced in the real life, first-person business cases of innovation management will be presented.  
Course slides will be made accessible to students after each lesson. Some of the books and documents presented in the bibliography will be presented and discussed with students during the lessons.

Disruptive innovation, as well as technological, social and economic changes are key characteristics of the “New Economy," drastically impacting all aspects of businesses and social life. Information Technology (IT) is at the center of the Digital Transformation of companies for the optimization, redesign or reinvention of their business in response or in anticipation to the disruptive impact of emerging technologies and new business models.
All managers are directly or indirectly concerned with IT, either because they work in the IT department or because they are involved in the definition, purchase, deployment, and usage of IT infrastructures, software, and applications. This course will provide students with a basic understanding of IT as an introduction to the changing managerial role in organisation.

Disruptive innovation, as well as technological, social and economic changes are key characteristics of the “New Economy," drastically impacting all aspects of businesses and social life. Information Technology (IT) is at the center of the Digital Transformation of companies for the optimization, redesign or reinvention of their business in response or in anticipation to the disruptive impact of emerging technologies and new business models.
All managers are directly or indirectly concerned with IT, either because they work in the IT department or because they are involved in the definition, purchase, deployment, and usage of IT infrastructures, software, and applications. This course will provide students with a basic understanding of IT as an introduction to the changing managerial role in organisation.

The course is structured in nine modules of four/six 1¼h classes. Each module may include a lecture, a classwork on a business case and an individual test online. For the classwork the students will be organized in groups; the grading will be the average of a peer evaluation, a professor evaluation and a self-evaluation. 

1. Jan  21^st , 23^rd, 28^th - MODULE 1 - The Technological Cambrian and Innovation Dynamics 

•       Presentation of the Course: Schedule, Assignments, Tests, Grading

First-hand Business case: TIM San Marino “The living lab of TIM Group” 

How to analyse the dynamic of emerging technologies: Gartner Cycle of Hype. 

•       Reading Assignment: Gartner Hype Cycle

•       Classwork:  Analyse a trending technology using Gartner Hype Cycle 

•       Test on IT (anonymous and ungraded)

1. Jan 30^th, Feb 4^th  - MODULE 2 -  Disruptive Innovations: The Innovator’s Dilemma

•       Why do successful new technologies cause great firms to fail? 

Sweet Spots; Dynamics of Disruptions; The Innovator’s Solution; 

First-hand business case: VoIP Vocaltec’s Disruption Case.

•       Reading assignment: C. Christiansen The Innovator’s Dilemma Introduction 1-19

•       Classwork: Using The Innovator’s Dilemma framework (wherever applicable), analyse a case of technological disruption (ChatGPT vs Google Search, Kodak vs Digital Photography, iPhone vs Blackberry, Netflix vs Blockbuster)

•       On line Test on the Innovator’s Dilemma Model

3.     Feb  6^th, 11^th, 13^th -  MODULE 3 - The Digital Economy and Social Media

•       Definition of Digital Economy, History, Business Models, Economic Rules.

Social Networks (SNS) in Business: Advertising, Branding, Customer Care. 

Major SNS platforms: Facebook, LinkedIn, X (fr Twitter), Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok, YouTube. 

•       Reading Assignment: Social Media differentiation

Classwork: From a managerial standing, analyse a Social Network Platform pro’s and con’s and plan a marketing/publicity campaign on it. 

•       On line Test on the Digital Economy and Social Media

•        

1. Feb 18^th  , 20^th , 25^th, 27^nd  and Feb 28 (Friday)   –  MODULE 4 - Artificial Intelligence

•       History of AI. Neural Networks. Deep Learning. Supervised and unsupervised learning. Backward Propagation. AI Business Applications. AI Ethical Issues.

•       Reading Assignment: The Master Algorithm – P. Gonzales Times HE

•       Classwork: analyse Generative AI ChatGPT applications for business. 

•       On line test on Artificial Intelligence 

1. March 4^th , 6^th, 18^th, 20^th MODULE 5 – Blockchain: Cryptocurrencies, NFTs and Web 3.0 

•       Money and Trust; Different Kind of Money; Centralized vs Decentralized Ledgers; Fiat Money Pro’s and Con’s; Satoshi Nakamoto White Paper; Hashing Algorithm SHA256.  Blockchain, Bitcoin, Merkle Tree, Proof of Work, 

Mining, BTC Explorer, Wallets; Altcoin, Proof of Stakes, ICO, Altcoi: Ethereum, Litecoin, Monero, Ripple, Decentralize Finance (DeFi), NFTs

•       Reading Assignment: Bitcoin Wallet, Will web3 reinvent the internet business? 

•       Classwork: Choose your Bitcoin Wallet and (plan to) create it.

•       On line test on Blockchain and Cryptocurrencies 

1. March 25^th , 27^st , April 1^st  MODULE 6 - Information Technology Management and ERP 

•       Information Technology and Information Systems Definition and Classification. IT Governance. System Development.

ERP; Legacy and Evolution; Supply Chain Management; CRM; Enterprise Social Platforms; Systems Selections; VAR and Vendors.

•       Reading Assignment: Top ERP Vendors – Panorama Consulting

•       Classwork: You are the Account Manager of an ERP Vendor (SAP, Oracle, MS Dynamics): present your ERP solution to the Client Company 

•       On line test on Technology Management and ERP 

1. April 3^rd, 8^th  , 10^th   - MODULE 7 - Cloud Computing

•       Computer Architecture: CPU, Memory, NIC; Operating Systems and Applications. Computers Clusters. Virtualization. Private and Public Cloud. SaaS, PaaS, IaaS, DaaS. 

•       Reading Assignment: Cloud Competitive Scenario – The Economist, Gen Kim et al. The Phoenix Project Page 15-24

•       Classwork: You are the Account Manager of an Cloud Vendor (AWS, Google, Oracle, Azure): present your Cloud solution to the Client Company 

•       On line test on Cloud Computing 

1. April 15^th , 17^th - MODULE 8 - Cybersecurity

•       Cyberthreats; Cyberwar, Actor State, Objectives of Cybersecurity; Malware, Ransomware, Hacking; Internal Threats  

•       Reading Assignment: Data Breach Cost 2021 Report - IBM

•       Classwork: Analyse and Discuss a major 2021 Cyber Attacks

•       On line test on Cybersecurity  

1. April 22^th  24^th 29 ^th - MODULE 9 -  i4.0, 5G Mobile, Global Satellite Communication 

•       Telecommunications: Satellite, 5G; IoT 

Industry 4.0  (i4.0) – Smart Manufacturing

•       Reading Assignment: The Forces of 5G – The Economist

•       Classwork: analyse Starlink Project and its environmental impact

•       On line test on 5G and Satellite Communication  

1. May  6^th  – Final Exam